The Guardian of Candi Sambisari

The Jakarta Globe has an interesting article on a lesser-known temple, Candi Sambisari in Yogyakarta, a Hindu structure that is unusual in that it faces west.

Guardian of a Yogyakarta Temple
Jakarta Globe, 15 October 2009

Candi Sambisari temple is about three kilometers north of the Yogyakarta Air Force Academy in Sleman district, and for a thousand years, volcanic debris kept it hidden from view and forgotten.

A farmer called Karyoinangun unearthed the temple while ploughing a field to plant cassava more than 30 years ago.

Karyoinangun, who was born in 1932, stills goes to tend to the temple every morning and stays until the late afternoon.

â€œI keep the temple clean, and when people ask, I show them the stone that my plough struck that morning,â€ he said.

Karyoinangunâ€™s love for the temple is obvious. â€œI discovered it, helped to excavate it, and now I keep it clean,â€ he said.

Candi Sambisari now looks much like it must have in the ninth century when it was erected. The main temple measures almost 14-by-14 meters and is 7.5 meters high. Inside the main room of the temple is a linga phallic symbol standing in a massive yoni â€” representative of the female genitalia â€” with a mythical snakeâ€™s head carved into the base of the large stone. The linga represents the god Shiva, and in Sambisari is made of a stone that is denser and smoother than the rest of the andesite temple, indicating that it might have been imported from some faraway place.